


adapt

by officialmarsrover



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Brain Injury, Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-traumatic amnesia, this is a medically inaccurate mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 19:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8069332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialmarsrover/pseuds/officialmarsrover
Summary: adam sometimes forgets where he is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is half an incoherent drabble and half a bad vent fic abt my brain issues have fun yall

adam sometimes forgets where he is.

he would be worried by it. or, more accurately, he is, but he can't afford to be worried right now. too much is happening, so he just pushes it away.

most of the time, it's extremely ineffective, because from time to time he'll blink and realize three hours have gone by and he has no idea where he is or what just happened.

the doctor at the emergency room said it was normal. his exact words were "concerning, but not unusual", which didn't really help much. he called it post-traumatic amnesia, and he'd told adam more or less that he might forget what happened in the past or what he had just done. he'd used lots of words adam didn't know and he told him it probably wouldn't be permanent, but he couldn't make any promises.

needless to say, that did not make him feel better.

he doesn't sleep, either. even though his condition might not be permanent he's afraid of losing time, and he wants to hold on to every second he can get. he pretends that this is the only reason, not that when he closes his eyes he sees his father's fists and his face as he watched him fall down the stairs.

it isn't something he talks to ronan about. he figures that ronan already has enough to deal with, that he doesn't need to burden him with his memory problems, too. of course it isn't because he's scared that the minute he tells someone, it's going to become real.

he thinks that ronan might know some of it. he sees him zone out of conversations or forget why he's in ronan's room, even if he doesn't say it. ronan doesn't bring it up. adam sometimes sort of wishes he would, because no way in hell is he going to do it himself. he doesn't think he'd even know what to say.

he's pretty sure gansey doesn't know about any of it. gansey is observant, but adam is good at hiding things, and he isn't around him quite as much as ronan is. after he'd turned up on the side of a highway with no memory of the past eight hours, though, he knew gansey had been worried. worried enough to drag adam off to a doctor at one in the morning. the doctor says something about transient global amnesia, but gansey doesn't tell him about what happened to adam, and adam doesn't offer the information, which makes adam think that maybe the diagnosis wasn't completely correct.

so. that was another issue to add to his list.

so adam pushes through it, dragging himself through work and school and any extra shifts he can get his hands on. he does his best to ignore the knot of anxiety growing in his throat and threatening to consume him, telling him that his brain is his only way out of this shithole town and if he loses that, he's nothing. he tries harder not to think about it, because the more he does, the more he thinks he's going to throw up.

but one day he finds himself sitting on the floor in a stall of the aglionby boy's bathroom, after he'd gotten there and forgotten which class he had to go back to. adam's face feels wet. he thinks he may have been crying. or be crying. he isn't quite sure.

adam sits there for a minute. he tries not to think about what he's missing in whatever class he should be in right now and just breathes, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall.

eventually he stands up and walks to the sink, splashing water on his face. he takes a deep, shaky breath and walks out of the room.

it's fine. he'll adapt.

**Author's Note:**

> literally what is this  
> this is probably 90% incorrect in terms of all the medical stuff im so sorry  
> i know i put some of this in the other fic i wrote but i keep thinking abt how there was no way adam was Completely Fine physically after he got literally fuckin thrown down a flight of stairs so here we are i guess  
> anyways here this is i guess lmao


End file.
